


Ladies, Longcoats, and Lead Bolts

by Masterweaver



Category: RWBY
Genre: Detective Noir, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23162026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masterweaver/pseuds/Masterweaver
Summary: Hard times aren't hard to find in the city of Mantle. What's hard to find is somebody who can help out and still cares enough to try. That's my job, and one I'm proud of--but it's not always the easiest one to do.Like the time we found money being skivved from a crater district. It should have been an open and shut case, but when my team dug into it we found more deadly shadows then a den of Centinels...Name's Greenleaf. Joanna Greenleaf. And I've got an eye for problems.
Relationships: Robyn Hill/Fiona Thyme
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	1. Sleet on Tuesday

Ironwood’s airships vyed with the storm for control of the sky, neither side giving the ember-painted streets of Mantle a second glance as they growled at each other like icecats and frostferrets around the same den of hares. It wasn’t going to snow today, but that wasn’t because of anything the general was doing; I could tell the storm was setting up for a hell of a sleet on Tuesday. I’d always been ambivalent toward Tuesdays; sometimes they were good, sometimes they were bad, overall they just weren’t memorable. But with sleet coming in, there’d be a number more of incidents.

A rough breath reverberated in my chest as I opened a stained metal door and stepped into the box that served as my team’s office. Sure, a pack of Beowolves would have a hard time destroying everything with how cramped they would be, but for four huntresses it was just large enough to let us rush out the door when we needed it. I shut the door behind me, walking over to the wall calendar and shaking my head as I marked the weather for the next few days.

The dame in the corner scoffed a bit. Couldn’t blame her for that, really; she was raised by a bloodline as blue as her hair, and even realizing how jumped up they were didn’t quite scrub away all the haughtiness. Dame was classically trained, which meant she could curse in seven languages--four of which were as dead as a dolphin in Vacuo. Still, she was smart as a whip, and she knew by now that my strange skill with predicting weather could be trusted, even if she didn’t quite get how. I’d rib on her from time to time, but I had to admit the dame had grown up quite a bit since we were in the academy.

As soon as I backed off from the calendar, another of my partners shot across the room and looked over the new marks with enthused concentration. I couldn’t help a small chuckle as I backed off a bit; the doll was a sweet little thing by all appearances, all smiles all the time. She’d smile while helping people across the street, she’d smile while chatting up with friends, and she’d smile while pinching a few dozen lien cards from the richest idiots Atlas had to offer. The doll looked like the most innocent one of us, and she knew it; if she hadn’t had such a good heart she’d have run the whole kingdom ragged five times over by now. Six, maybe, if I counted the thing with the Schnee babe, but that was all on our boss.

I glanced over at the dish at the desk as I leaned against the wall. She was the kind of woman who didn’t want to be called beautiful. Part of that was the way most people used the word, talking about soft things like satin and pillows; the boss’s beauty was different, a mountain that withstood ages of wind and snow to become a stark sight on the horizon, the kind that made you stand firm in awe. But really, most of the reason the dish didn’t want to be called beautiful was that she didn’t like being buttered up, and most of the people who’d call her beautiful to her face were the kind that wanted something from her. There were two ways it could end--either she’d shut down the person saying it, or it’d be the doll and she’d wind up taking her into a back room for a close quarter-hour.

Course, there was me too. Not many people noticed me, but that was by design. The dame would sass and swear up a storm as she handled the enigmatic mess of paperwork and legal doubletalk needed to keep us afloat. The doll could just move through the crowd, asking how everyone was doing and providing a soft white ear to hearts in pain. And the dish was always pressing forward, trying to get the best of the best for Mantle--that was why she was our boss, of course, but it also meant everyone’s eyes were on her.

Sure, I never expected to be the quiet one. I was big and could talk with my fists as easily as my words. But one of the things you learned early out in the tundra was to keep your mouth shut while you hunted prey, and it turned out that when that prey was problems people had, the rule still applied. People in Mantle didn’t want to put their issues out where anybody could see them; some didn’t want to be a bother and others, well, others were afraid of being exploited. Not an unfair fear, to be honest, but it made it harder to find out where we were needed.

Of course, people who were hiding problems still had problems, and that had an effect on them. Sometimes they would hunch their shoulders. Glance up at the hunk of rock in the sky with silent resentment. Lounge about on stoops, buy a bit more booze. Things ordinary people might have missed, little details. Thing that people don’t realize about growing up in the tundra, we learn to spot little details early; it can mean the difference between setting up camp and getting mauled by a pack of Sabyrs. So I was the one who walked the streets and picked up on the vibes people gave off.

The dish’s eyes narrowed as she ran over a few reports, like a fox that had just caught the scent of a hare beneath the snow. I could see how much she wanted to snarl from the way her nose twitched, but she wasn’t going to risk showing so much right out of the gate. She called the dame over for a doublecheck; girl had grown up in the fetid morass that was called Atlas’s Upper Society, so she was familiar enough with the stench of corruption to not only sniff it out but give us a good idea of what kind it might be and who was dumping on us this time. Me and the doll swapped a glance as the dame looked over the reports; we both hoped it’d be something that could just be solved with a sternly written letter, but from the time it was taking her, things might right be complicated.

At last the dame put the reports down, spewing out language so rotten it’d make a Teryx sick to their stomach. I knew then it’d be a busy week, even if I didn’t know just how busy it was going to get.


	2. An Absent Chill

Chill was something of an unloved family member for anybody who lived in Solitas. She'd drop in without warning sometimes, waking you up in the middle of the night or cozying up to you when the heater went out. The girl was something of a socialite, every street and alley worth her attention as she graced the homeless with her presence, not once dropping a lien in their hats. Chill preferred to show off, and if you ignored her, she'd try harder to get your attention.

Most folks didn't appreciate what she did, keeping her away from homes as much as possible. Out in the tundra, though, Chill was powerful, tracking down wounded prey and assailing them as she ran among hunters. Chill kept us alive, and we had to respect her.

Didn't mean I had to like her, though. I was glad of her absence on this day.

The dish led us down the road with fierce determination, her eyes narrowed in violet intensity. Different huntresses have different styles, and hers was the kind that looked over every detail for the best point to attack; I could already tell she was examining and reexamining the situation in her mind. Wasn't much to go on yet, I'd say; half a dozen cases of proprietary repurposing, two dozen incidents of kids too old for their age, and a smattering of hopeful looks scattered unevenly around the downtrodden. Course, that didn't mean there was nothing; more people were brooding than usual, leaning against walls or sulking on the rickety metal platforms which counted as porches. Fewer lights in the windows, too--that was serious this far north.

It wasn't long before we hit our destination, a squat three-story brick edifice that still stood taller than any building around it. The front door was gussied up with the fanciest tech from two years ago, keeping up with Atlas trends about as well as the secretary in a secondhand suit. It wasn't hard to notice the brief flash of exasperation on his face as we approached, but he schooled himself like the polite door-greeter he was and rattled off the usual 'welcome to the district' speech that he'd been trained for.

The boss propped an elbow on the desk, leaning in as she oh so casually asked about the numbers in the reports she'd read. It wasn't likely the boy knew anything, beyond maybe being able to direct us toward where the matter might be filed, but there were people who'd stir up trouble if it didn't at least appear as though we were going through proper channels.

Normally I'd spend the time people-watching, but aside from the boy the room was as empty as a collapsed mine. That wouldn't have been surprising, if it weren't for the Schnee-lien's worth of gloom I'd seen on the way over. Desperate people usually mobbed official places like this, looking for a last scrap of hope or some jerk in power to scream at. Every one of them avoiding the district center, though? Something had them spooked, and there were too few nail-in-the-plank barbwire fences for it to be a Grimm on the loose.

I shuffled over to the dame, nudging her with an elbow and shooting a look at the doors behind the desk. She glanced at the still ongoing conversation for a moment, tracking the boy's eyes, and shook her head; seemed getting at the papers ourselves was a no-go right then. Wasn't really surprising, though; if everyone was allowed to look through all the records, enough dirt would be dug up to bury a megoliath.

The boss wrapped up her shallow imitation of a conversation with the polite little sign-off such interactions demanded, walking toward the door with a calculated stride. The doll turned to glance back with one of her patented smiles, carefully crafted to make the boy behind the desk squirm with the guilt that she was sympathetically absolving with her expression. Funny little trick, that; people who had something to hide always had a reason, but if it was a bad reason they'd know--especially if they were allowed to keep hiding it because the Kind-Hearted Huntress just couldn't _imagine_ anybody ever having a _bad_ reason...

I glanced over my shoulder at the boy, gauging his reaction. A basic shrug, with an understanding smile thrown in. Either he was a sociopath, the world's best actor, or he legitimately had no idea what was going on. Second wasn't likely with how he'd reacted when he'd seen us; first would have been impossible to tell without digging deeper. Ochre's razor meant he was probably an innocent bystander.

We stepped out into the darkening morning, haphazard fog wards lighting up as the sun disappeared behind Atlas. The doll caught up to the dish, giving her a reassuring smile and marking it real with a comforting pat of the arm. The dame offered her own view, pointing out we'd only just started the case this morning and weren't nearly out of options. Course, I thought the same thing, but the level of sass the dame used was enough to get a chuckle out of the dish, and that was the important part when it came right down to it.

It took a few seconds for the dish to regain her poise, but when she did she was all business. She'd take the dame round the legal rigamarole, while me and the doll hit the streets to see what we could dig from the people living there. Standard issue when it came to missing money cases like these; the sky charities were still raining lien to assuage their battered consciences, so somebody had to have set up a net in the pipes. And either we'd find the strings in the paperwork, or we'd track down the clog from the taps running dry. We'd done it before, and we'd do it again, same as every time.

Still, as we split into pairs, I couldn't help but glance back at the district center. Places like that usually reeked of frustration in so many different ways. That empty room had me on edge, and I didn't know if it was the edge of Atlas or the edge of a sword.

Probably both.


End file.
